Fun’s Nate Ruess: ‘Lyrics are so dumbed down these days’

Singer also tells NME that he believes rap metal is responsible for many of rock music's current woes

Fun frontman Nate Ruess has said that he believes that the lyrics of most modern day acts “have become so dumbed down”.

The pop rock band released their second studio album ‘Some Nights’ on May 21 and charted at Number Nine in the Official Chart yesterday (May 27). They also saw their monster hit single ‘We Are Young’ take the Number One spot in the UK Singles Chart.

Ruess told NME when asked about his thoughts on today’s mainstream rock scene and how he thought Fun fitted in that he believed they were the first band in a long while to pay attention to their lyrics.

He said of this: “Lyrics have become so dumbed down nowadays. People don’t want to have to think about lyrics anymore, they just want to be told something. Until these great things started happening with us, I’d really given up on reaching people like that. Lyrics are so important, I hate every second of writing them, but it’s something I take great pride in when it’s finished.”

Ruess also said that he believed the nu-metal explosion at the tail end of the 1990s had made a lot of rock bands feel self-conscious about appealing to big audiences and afraid to put any theatrical elements into their live show.

He said of this: “I feel like the rap metal at the end of the 1990s destroyed rock music for everybody and suddenly everybody felt like they had to apologise for being in rock bands. People suddenly felt bad about wanting to reach massive audiences and the sense of theatre, that we have in our live show, became something to avoid. People seem to play live shows and just try to get through them.”

Sharethrough (Mobile)

He continued: “I idolised bands like Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins, who wanted to reach as many people as they could. That’s what we want from this band. We were the first rock band since Coldplay to get a Number One in the US and that tells you everything you need to know about the state of rock music in the charts.”

You can watch the video for Fun’s previous single ‘All The Pretty Girls’ by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking.